“We set our vision to streamline interoperability of hardware to foster the adoption of mobile access in a fragmented access control industry,” said Nelson Henry, chair of the Aliro Working Group at the Connectivity Standards Alliance and senior solutions architect at Allegion. “This mobile credential standard, Aliro, looks to create an environment where access control providers and mobile device manufacturers work together, eliminating barriers to innovation and creating a streamlined mobile access experience at a door. The Aliro protocol will build end-user confidence and expand adoption by making personal devices secure and central to the access control experience.”

With the support of companies such as Allegion, Apple, ASSA ABLOY, Google, Infineon, Kastle Systems, Last Lock, NXP Semiconductors, Qualcomm, Samsung and STMicroelectronics, Aliro was formed as a new effort within the alliance to solve this unique challenge. The aim is to create a path forward where the use of standardized technology — in this case, a common communication protocol and credential — can power a future where mobile devices and wearables are central to the digital access experience. Since the Aliro effort got under way in 2022, nearly 200 alliance member companies have signed on, donating dedicated time and resources to help pave the way for a better, interoperable, and more secure digital access experience.

Aliro represents four key principles for mobile device and access reader manufacturers, and with benefits that extend to a wide range of stakeholders, from system owners and installers to property owners and managers, homeowners, and renters, and more. These include:

Simplicity — Lower barrier to implementation by reducing complexity for integration and streamlining troubleshooting.

Flexibility — Supports different types of installations or architectures, offering convenient access to both common and individual entry points.

Security — Foundation to implement state-of-the-art secured and trusted mobile access solutions.

Interoperability — Standardized communication protocol enables manufacturer-independent devices and readers to work together at the door.

Aliro aims to reduce the complexity of partner integrations and acts as an arbiter for certification of interoperability for mobile devices and access card readers. It is designed to reduce the high cost of R&D and simplify the integration process. The certified hardware then makes it easier for system owners and installers to select the best hardware and software for their needs, streamline installation, and support a wide variety of consumer smartphones and wearables. Aliro will also make management and maintenance of access control systems easier, eliminating the need to troubleshoot across multiple providers of hardware.

“For Aliro, one of the principal challenges to keep woven throughout our thought process has been the breadth of use cases and impact of such a targeted and yet crucial portion of the overall access solution on a wide set of unique markets with particular needs,” Henry said.

The Aliro communication protocol will act as the heart of the standard, supporting a wide range of transmission technologies, and facilitating adoption by user devices and access readers, across varied access control use cases. It promises to deliver a comprehensive point-to-point application layer. The standard will include definitions for Near Field Communication (NFC), Bluetooth Low-Energy (BLE), and Ultra-Wideband (UWB) experiences, as well as asymmetric cryptography and credential data.

Aliro looks to create an environment where access control and mobile device manufacturers work together, eliminating barriers to innovation and adoption. By establishing interoperable, simple, and secured solutions that can be adopted by mobile device and access control hardware makers, Aliro will speed adoption of the use of a mobile device as a key, and the installation, operation, and use of supported digital access card readers.

“For dealers and integrators, I’d emphasize that it simplifies the complexity for partner integrations, providing a way to more easily manage a mix and match of hardware and software while covering a wide variety of user devices,” Henry concluded. “Aliro also helps streamline installation and device troubleshooting between multiple providers of hardware.” — By Christopher Crumley, SDM Staff Editor

For more information, visit the Connectivity Standards Alliance. //

Baldwin continued, “They needed to be able to service customers that were bigger than they felt like we could scale to. We were great if you needed to have one location with lots of doors, but we were not really being used as effectively as we should have been for solutions where there were many locations that needed to share a single, controlled database of users, access rules and schedules.”

Other enhancements improve the user experience by making system management, configuration, and maintenance faster and easier.

System and Health: PDK.io 2.0 provides an at-a-glance view of how the entire system is functioning and a means to quickly dive deep into detailed information about specific devices, like their battery status, battery charging state, and electrical current levels.

“System and health gives a complete view of the system that the dealers and installers can use to assess the health of each device that is connected inside that system,” Baldwin said. “They’ll know whether there’s a overcurrent or an undercurrent, whether there’s a battery that needs to be replaced, and whether or not something is connected or disconnected. And if it were disconnected at some point, they’d get information as to when the last time we saw it connected.”

Baldwin continued, “That piece of hardware is to our cloud. That’s important because now they can start troubleshooting and start looking at what happened to that device. Maybe something went offline at a certain location because wiring was cut by a contractor or something in a specific location.”

Early Configuration and Extended Management: System setup can begin before installing PDK hardware. Dealers or administrators can import people, segment them into groups, and set global permissions like 24/7 access, M-F access or specific days and shifts. They can also issue credentials. As soon as hardware is installed, users can begin using controlled doors.

“If a device on the network is disconnected from the cloud, that shouldn’t cause the dealer or the end customer that’s administering the system to be prevented from being able to do basic things like entering a new employee,” Baldwin said.

Continued Ease of Use: PDK.io 2.0 provides more intuitive access to features and a more seamless experience. For example, users can now quickly switch between viewing their devices within a list or on a floor plan.

“One piece of feedback we’ve heard from our beta sites is they were very nervous that when we start making the software more enterprise-capable that we would lose some of that PDK DNA — the simplicity and the ease of use,” Baldwin said. “One of the first comments that almost everybody made was that it still looks, feels and works like PDK. We obviously would not want to change that in any way because people love the ease of use, but they now get all the additional functionality.” — By Christopher Crumley, SDM Staff Editor

For more information, visit PDK. //

Eagle Eye CEO Dean Drako noted that the integration offers built-in false positive alarm reduction through Eagle Eye’s AI-filtering, which readily distinguishes people and vehicles from unimportant activity such as trees blowing in the wind.

“The Eagle Eye system is cloud-based and open, so our built-in AI can also be augmented with third-party AI technology,” Drako said. “Furthermore, Immix also connects with Brivo Access, which means their dashboard can complete the full loop of receiving alarms, viewing video, performing a two-way audio session and providing remote access.”

Tony Byerly, global president, Securitas Technology, said, “Eagle Eye Networks-Immix video monitoring is a solid solution for clients, especially those that have multiple locations. The integration will unlock even more value for our clients and supports our mission to help make your world a safer place.”

Immix CEO Chris Brown said Immix is pleased to continue to expand its partnership with Eagle Eye Networks and offer enhanced solutions that enable the success of mutual customers. “Immix and Eagle Eye share a vision and are strategically aligned to deliver a powerful solution that will allow our customers to grow their footprint for managed video services and empower them to dramatically increase their recurring revenue streams on a global scale,” Brown said.

For more information, visit EEN. //

Amazon One Enterprise eliminates operational overhead associated with the management of traditional enterprise authentication methods, like badges and PINs, according to the announcement. IT and security administrators can install the Amazon One devices and manage users, devices and software updates in the AWS Management Console.

Formally unveiled during the recent AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas, the Amazon One Enterprise is currently “available in preview in the U.S.” Initial deployments include corporate users IHG Hotels and Resorts, Paznic, KONE and Boon Edam, a leading manufacturer of revolving doors, security doors and security turnstiles.

“Our mission at Boon Edam is to protect what matters most to our customers by creating an ideal secured entry solution,” stated Patrick Nora, president, Boon Edam Americas. “With Amazon One Enterprise, we can offer authorized entrances using innovative palm biometric technology that raises our security bar and delivers a convenient workplace experience. Our customers can prevent unauthorized entry, reduce the time spent monitoring access, and keep traffic moving smoothly.”

With employees using their palms for authentication, customers eliminate much of the cost associated with buying fobs, and printing, issuing and managing badges and other IDs. Amazon One Enterprise supports industry standard access-control protocols such as Open Supervised Device Protocol (OSDP) and Wiegand.

To begin, a user can enroll by hovering their palm over an Amazon One enrollment device and associating their palm with their organization’s preferred ID — such as badges, PINs and passwords — and this can be done in less than a minute.

After enrollment, users access physical locations simply by hovering their palm over an Amazon One device attached to common physical access control systems for uses such as unlocking doors, entry gates and other barriers. When connected to computers or other enterprise systems, the platform authenticates users for access to web applications and software.

For more information, visit Amazon Web Services. //

With approximately 20,000 end customers, Verkada states it has continued to evolve its partner ecosystem. In the past year, the company’s global partner community has grown by 40 percent — now totaling more than 6,500 partners — and the team that supports the company’s partners has grown by 50 percent.

“We’re making a comprehensive update to our Partner Program, designed to ensure our shared customers receive consistently high technical service levels across the globe and enable our partners to continue to grow a profitable business around Verkada,” stated Caleb Augustin, head of channel sales, Verkada.

He added, “Our new Partner Program marks an important step forward as we continue to operate as a partner-first organization and support our partners in delivering category-defining products to our shared customers.”

Technical Services Network

Verkada said it has many national and global customers for whom obtaining consistently high levels of service throughout the globe can be challenging. Few channel partners have staff that can cover every region or country and therefore at times find it necessary to subcontract work.

To meet this need, Verkada created the new Premier Services designation. The designation is reserved for partners who exhibit: exceptional design, installation and services capabilities across the company’s product lines; have a significant number of technical certifications through Verkada programs; and who may act as either a primary or subcontractor depending on the project.

Premier Services partners are also subject to a rigorous internal review process and are offered in-person training courses on the technical nuances of Verkada products. The Premier Services designation is being made visible to Verkada customers and other partners in a searchable database. Partners of any membership level can achieve the designation.

Investing in Partner Training

The company said it is further investing in training courses to support the growth of its channel partners. This includes:

• Expanding the Verkada Certified Engineer (VCE) Program. VCE offers partners the opportunity to take rigorous, in-person training courses that will help them become technical experts in Verkada product lines — ultimately, helping them better architect and implement Verkada’s security and building solutions. VCE covers several product lines and associated certifications, including Verkada Essentials, Access Control Specialist and, most recently, Alarms Specialist.
• Building a new sales training program, Verkada Sales Professional (VSP). VSP will help train partner sales representatives to support their sales and demo capabilities for Verkada. The VSP pilot program will launch alongside the new Partner Program on Feb. 1.

“Partners are the lifeblood of our company, and we’re committed to continuing to grow with them while delivering exceptional customer experiences,” Augustin said. “Through the launch of our new Partner Program, we believe we will accelerate our shared vision of making the communities that we live and work in safer.”

For more information, visit Verkada. //

“Customers are increasingly in search of advanced situational awareness and precision in video surveillance, regardless of its specific application,” said Gerald Becker, vice president, market development and alliances, Quanergy. “The integration of Quanergy and Bosch technologies provides an exceptional solution for detecting, tracking, and classifying moving individuals and objects within sensitive or secure environments with remarkable accuracy.”

Q-Track combines Quanergy’s long-range 3D LiDAR sensors with advanced perception software to provide users with hyper-accurate 3D intelligent proactive awareness to reduce false alarms and save lives. Quanergy’s new partnership with Bosch effectively allows Q-Track to send object location, both relative and absolute, to Bosch video cameras such as the MIC Inteox 7100i. This integration triggers a ‘Slew to Cue’ event-to-action workflow where the camera, powered by the actionable intelligence from the LiDAR system can continuously track a bad actor throughout the entire perimeter of a site, regardless of harsh weather conditions or suboptimal lighting.

This makes the Quanergy, Bosch integrated solution ideal for applications within critical infrastructure sites where uneven terrain, numerous obstacles and inadequate lighting conditions are common.

For more information, visit Quanergy. //

The Luma Bridge device comes bundled with a three-year subscription to the Luma Insights service, which allows users to integrate new AI and machine learning features that exceed the capabilities of their IP cameras and NVRs alone. The Insights service is compatible at launch with Luma x10 and x20 IP cameras as well as the Control4 Chime Video Doorbell, and is integrator-friendly, requiring very minimal setup.

“Artificial intelligence software is creating new opportunities and capabilities across a broad range of devices, including security and surveillance where it can enhance detection of security events and provide greater peace of mind for users and partners alike,” said Derek Webb, surveillance product manager, Snap One. “Our focus here is on enhancing the Control4 experience by delivering new highly-anticipated features including surveillance-based playback, automatic and dynamic notifications all inside of Control4 using the AI of Luma Insights. Our longer term goal is to continue making it easy for partners to update existing systems without needing to engage in costly and intrusive system overhauls.”

Luma Insights enables seven days of cloud-storage for snapshots and video clips of surveillance-triggered events, which customers can access locally through their Control4 Touchscreens and remotely via Control4 App for iOS or Android. These ‘triggered events’ automatically generate a link and an image of the event, which are both added to a notification and pushed to the owner's mobile device.

Empowered by the Hailo-8 edge AI accelerator, each Luma Bridge device can process up to four camera streams in real-time, and deliver intelligent capabilities beyond the cameras’ native designs using the Luma Insights service. Snap One chose the class-leading Hailo-8 for its performance, efficiency and proven integration record with camera systems. The Hailo-8 features up to 26 tera-operations per second, outperforming all other edge processors and enabling highly accurate insights with low latency, for real-time alerts and notifications.

“Hailo is excited to partner with a leading U.S.-based smart tech company that leverages AI to offer innovative tech products and solutions across both the residential and commercial spaces,” said D.C. Smalley, general manager of Hailo North America. “Hailo’s advanced AI technology improves the end user experience and safety by providing more accurate insights with unparalleled speed.”

Webb added, “This new solution will provide long-term benefits for users including future firmware updates to offer additional tiers of functionality including the potential for expanded cloud storage, additional AI features, such as perimeter protection, access control, support for third-party cameras and more. This is the most powerful and most automated surveillance platform ever for Control4 users, and every Snap One security partner now has an excellent reason to reach out to existing customers and begin delivering enhanced peace of mind to every business and homeowner.”

For more information, visit Snap One. //

“The X Series cameras demonstrate our commitment to setting new standards of innovation that are helping to shape the future of our industry,” said Masato Nakao, CEO, i-PRO Co. Ltd. “We take immense pride in the accomplishments of our product and engineering teams as they bring this ground-breaking technology to market.”

The X Series camera has the ability to significantly enhance traditional cameras with AI capabilities. The AI Processing Relay is an innovative feature that allows customers to add AI capabilities to their existing, non-AI, surveillance cameras, including cameras from other manufacturers, making them smarter and more efficient. This cost-effective solution improves existing surveillance systems and further reduces false alarms. Cameras with limited AI integration to popular VMSs like Milestone and Genetec can now achieve complete parity utilizing this function and i-PRO Active Guard software.

The new on-site AI learning feature lets customers teach the camera about custom objects they wish to identify and search for or track. For example, operators could teach the camera to count forklifts passing through the camera’s field of view to provide new metrics about operational efficiency. A hospital could count ambulances arriving at the emergency room. The AI On-site Learning app can even auto-generate multiple training images at different luminance values saving operators valuable time while increasing detection accuracy.

“The new i-PRO X Series represents a groundbreaking leap forward in AI-enhanced surveillance,” said Norio Hitsuishi, chief product officer, i-PRO Co. Ltd. “With the AI Processing Relay app, we’re not just introducing a product, we’re transforming the industry by making older network cameras smarter. By utilizing the latest Ambarella chip and introducing AI on-site learning, the possibilities are infinite. We now believe this is the most powerful AI camera in the security market.”

The new X Series includes 16 new camera models including eight bullet cameras, four interior domes, and four exterior domes with 2, 5, and 6MP options plus 4K models. With Wide Dynamic Range (WDR) of up to 144dB and IR illumination to 70 meters, image performance is unparalleled in all conditions. Designed and manufactured in Japan, the NDAA compliant cameras support the highest level of cybersecurity with FIPS 140-2 Level 3 certification, secure boot and GlobalSign digital certificates.

For more information, visit i-PRO. //